Hi I’m getting right into Digital Art and just adore the works of Craig, simply amazing. Can anyone tell me how to get those great texture effects, the way the canvas looks real and dirty. I just can’t seem to create anything near to look like dirty canvas and more traditional like his works.
Phil
Do loooots and lots of oil paintings.
Craig was a master painter way before Photoshop and Painter where even a workable medium to use, but becuase of his phenominal understanding of paint and color, he’s able to get those great effects. Check out his actual work and not just the “Sketches” of his in order to get a true scope of what he’s capable of. Your not going to be able to jump right to that level instantly.
Try out this tutorial to get a basic Idea of one of the ways he works,
http://www.gfxartist.com/features/tutorials/7731
But ultimatly, just study painting, Use his sketches as a great guide about where to add more detail, less detail, and most of all color. Color therory is what realy captivates most of his paintings, so study it. Also, unless your working on stuff for games, be prepared to study up on alot of lighting and rendering. I recomend Jerremy Birn’s book. It might be a bit out dated at this point in time, but I’ve found that its the easyest book to digest if you are just getting into this.
Yeah I’ve checked out all his works they are amazing and show he knows traditional art too with his understanding of colour and perspective. Are the textures though do you know scanned in from actual traditional brush strokes as they looks so real.
I don’t know how much he does this now days, but I know one of his techniques of old was using real photos of things and using them as sort of a base layer for his paintings, not like tracing stuff, but using them as textural elements. So a lot of that dirt you see may be scanned stuff that he then paints over, paints ontop and manipulates.
Shadow Slayer : thanks for the link! never new he made a tutorial.
soulburn3d : aahh I was wondering that. Thanks for the precision.
I like to do that a lot to add texture to my stuff, too. Throw some watercolor on paper and then scan that in, or photos of adobe walls, or whatever else has an interesting texture and a relatively uniform tone.
Adobe is a type of clay material that can be used to make brick walls. Provides alot of nice texture. 
http://www.dennisrhollowayarchitect.com/JPG/EstevanRezAngelWindow.JPG
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